


The Messenger

by LananiA3O



Series: Batfam Week 2018 [4]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batfam Week 2018, Batman: No Man's Land, Cannibalism (Mentioned), Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, flu and other infections, post-apokalyptic environment, slightly graphic description of a dead body, theme: hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 12:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15557589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LananiA3O/pseuds/LananiA3O
Summary: A few weeks after Gotham is declared "No Man's Land", in the middle of winter, Barbara falls sick. When Cass realizes that she can't help her, she decides to bring the help to Barbara: Leslie.





	The Messenger

**Author's Note:**

> My final entry for Batfam Week 2018, this time for the Hurt/Comfort Theme. Also, I think I still own the monopoly on the Cass & Leslie tag :P  
> This story takes place during the first two months of No Man's Land, when Bruce had not yet shown up in Gotham again and Cass was not Batgirl yet, just running errands and recon for Barb.

Cassandra knew that something was wrong the moment she stepped into the tower. The sun had only just gone down. Usually, Oracle was awake at this time. Tonight, the tower was dark and quiet. No colorful screens. No sounds from the radio. Only quiet, heavy wheezing and coughing from the room no-one but Cassandra was allowed in to.

The room where she found Oracle.

She was in bed, curled up and bent over as much as she could. Her legs were still lying straight, but Cassandra knew that was not by choice. She knew Oracle—no, Barbara, when she was not working—could not move them. The chair was standing at an odd angle. Cassandra doubted it would be easy to get into it like that. She pushed it closer to the bed and sat down gently on the mattress.

Now that she was closer, Cassandra found more things to worry about. Barbara was pale. Her hands were ice. Her forehead was fire. Her neck looked swollen. Her skin was wet with sweat. Her muscles were trembling and tense.

Cassandra pushed her shoulder gently, first. Then a little harder. Barbara moaned, but did not wake up. Cassandra sighed, put her fingers in position, and pinched the muscle between her shoulder and her throat hard.

The reaction was a lot slower than she would have expected, but at least Barbara woke up. Cass smiled at the confusion in her green eyes.

“Cassandra?”

She nodded quickly, then pointed at Barbara, made a fist with her thumbs up and down and shrugged her shoulders. Barbara probably had fancy words for asking ‘How are you?’, but Cass wouldn’t be able to understand them, even if her life depended on it. The only reason she recognized “Cassandra” as meaning ‘me’, was because that was the first thing Barbara had taught her.

She did try with words at first, but even Cassandra could tell that she had a hard time. All the coughing and wheezing… Every single time Barbara shuddered, but she also waved her hand and shook her head. Cassandra knew that gesture, too. It meant ‘don’t worry’.

But she did.

***

The next day started just as cold and harsh as the last one had ended. Cassandra shivered as she pulled the thin blanket closer around herself. She had seen cold winters before, but Gotham… Gotham was something different. Gotham was… hostile. Harsh and hostile. In other cities people sometimes killed each other. In Gotham they OFTEN  killed each other and no-one seemed to care. No-one but Batman and his allies, at least. In other cities, winters were cold. In Gotham, the ice had teeth and there was no escape. Especially now that the city was mostly deserted.

Only a few people had stayed behind when the bridges had been blown up. When the leaders of the country had decided that Gotham was better off destroying itself. They were waiting for something that would never happen. Somehow, Gotham always survived. This time would be no different.

The first group of people who had stayed behind were the criminals. Cassandra could hear them, walking up and down the street outside her little hideout. She made sure to keep her mouth closed while chewing on her breakfast and to breath shallow breaths. Any sound could give her away. She knew she could take them in a fight. All four of them. One of them was carrying a gun. She could hear him load it. One had a crowbar. It smacked against the chain on his pants as he walked. Guns and crowbars were nothing to her. She could take them all out in seconds, but she was not looking for a fight. Not while they were not hurting anyone.

The second group were the innocents. People like Barbara, who had broken bodies. Many of them had not been able to leave. People like Vanessa and Charlie and the other messengers who worked for Barbara. All of them homeless with no money. They had not had the means to leave. They had all been left behind and they were all fighting to survive now. Most of them were really bad at it.

The third group were the capes. Batman had disappeared. No-one had seen him since the earthquake. Cassandra did not understand. He was always the first to protect Gotham. He was part of the reason she had come HERE, of all places, because he was one of the few people who might have a chance to beat Cain, if he came after her. But Batman had disappeared. Robin was still here, though. At least Oracle said so. Cass had never met him. And the one who called herself Batgirl. Oracle said she had no right to do that, told Cassandra to stay away. And so she did. Oracle knew best. Usually.

The fourth group were the police and today THEY were Cassandra’s goal. Two of them were missing. Oracle had told her to find them, dead or alive. And so Cassandra would find them. She was good at finding people. It was one of the first things Cain had taught her. After all, you can’t kill someone, if you can’t find them.

She was not going to kill these men. Cassandra swallowed the last bite of the handful of rice she had found behind the counter of a looted bodega yesterday and slipped through the cracks in the wall that led back to the street. She was small and thin as a stick. Right now, that was very good for finding hiding places. And what was a little hunger, anyway?

Yesterday, she had tracked the men from their last known location on their patrol route along the southern border of the Asian part of town all the way to the northern border. That was not a good thing. The crocodile man, “Croc” Barbara had called him, controlled the area north of that border. The crocodile man who ATE other people.

The Asian district was lying in ruins and Cassandra was glad she had already finished this part of the trail. Yesterday, she had spent the full day carefully tracking foot prints and blood drops and disturbed rubble through the streets, where anyone could shoot her. The cops had tried to stick to cover, but they had not been too good at it. Honestly, Cassandra was surprised they had made it through Triad territory alive.

This time, she could stick to the rooftops. Cassandra moved quickly, stepped lightly, and double-checked her trail. The fewer clues she left, the better her chances of going undetected. This time, it only took her one hour.

Sadly, there had been fresh snow last night. Cassandra balked as she reached the point where she had stopped yesterday. The snow covered most of the tracks. And it was cold and it melted against her boots and drenched her socks. She would have to stay with Barbara tonight, to dry her clothes and shoes. What little trail there was led west, to the docks. Progress was slow. She had to wipe away her own foot prints after all.

Halfway to the docks, Cassandra stopped.

There was a massive hole in the wall next to the track. Lots of blood. She touched it carefully and found her fingers smudged slightly. Not completely fresh—it was not running anymore—but the snow had kept it from drying completely. Maybe a day old. She brushed the snow off one of the holes in the wall and searched the area around it. She found one scale, grayish-green and hard.

She wasn’t sure what the cops had been looking for, but the crocodile man had found them. A few steps later, she found the first man. Well... she found what was left of him.

He was missing both arms and one leg. The rest of him was mostly untouched, preserved in all its bloody detail in the cold snow. There was a hole in his rib cage, where the crocodile man had landed the killing blow, but the rest of his torso was undamaged. Cassandra pushed the snow off his face. His lips were blue. His skin was almost the color of the snow. Still, she could tell he was one of the two men whose pictures Oracle had showed her.

She took the blood-covered badge from his pocket and put it into her own. There was a good chance his body would remain here until the crocodile man had finished it. There would be nothing to bury, but at least she could bring this back. She could bring back a symbol of him. Eventually, Oracle might return it to his family. If they ever managed to get out of Gotham again.

The second man had escaped. Cassandra could tell from the blood. Very few drops on the ground. He had not been injured badly. Lots of smears on rubble and broken wood. He had run and climbed for his life. Had his partner been dead already? Or had he sacrificed him to gain an advantage? Cassandra doubted she would ever know. She couldn’t look into the past. She didn’t have the words to ask him, if she found him. She hoped it was the former.

The trail led further west. Cassandra followed, watching her step and staying away from the sewers. Her eyes were focused on the trail, her ears on the ruins around her. If the rest of Gotham was a ghost town, this was a ghost wasteland. Nobody wanted to be in the crocodile man’s territory. There were no distracting noises outside of the howling of the wind, her own breath and heartbeat, and the soft crunch of old snow under her feet.

It took her another hour and a half to find her destination. He HAD gone for the docks. Cassandra felt the hairs on her neck stand up. Was that where the two cops had been headed all along? True, this area of town was probably the best one to find an unclaimed boat in, but the soldiers watched the river. They had orders to shoot. Not to mention, the wind and snow were howling. Even without the crocodile man, the waters were not safe.

The doorway that the cop had gone through had crumbled. Cassandra climbed in through a nearby window, twisting her body to put her shoulders and hips through the small, gated opening without getting stuck. It was a little warmer inside the boat house, but her blood ran cold.

The boats were still there. All of them.

Cassandra shifted her hands and feet into her usual stalking stance and advanced slowly. The blood trail led inside the office of the house, to the storage room, and—oh no.

Cassandra froze. There, on the wall, hung nine sets of tanks, rubber suits, and those rubber fins people put on their feet for diving. The tenth set was missing.

It was a crazy plan. The water was too cold. The crocodile man could swim fast and he could smell blood. There were sharks in Gotham Bay. And the military had put bombs into the river. Cassandra frowned, then followed the trail of blood drops back out of the office and to the pier. In front of her, Gotham River stretched out just wide enough for her to see the shore of the mainland, but know that she would never reach it. The trail stopped here. There was no way for her to follow.

Cassandra prayed that the officer had somehow beaten all the odds and reached the other shore. Then she turned around and left the boat house. It was time to report to Oracle.

***

The tower was still dark. It was still quiet. Cassandra bristled.

It had taken her three hours to get back. The sun was starting to sink. She was wet and cold and tired and hungry. All of that vanished when she heard the coughing.

Barbara was still in her bed, only no longer curled up on her side. She was lying on her back, trying to take deep breaths, but they came out in scratching wheezes and coughs. Her hands were barely warmer than Cassandra’s and she had just come out of the snow. Barbara’s face was glowing with fever.

The chair was still in its place, but the carpet had creases. Parts of it were slightly darker in color and wet when Cassandra touched them. She followed a trail of similar shades to the bathroom.

The sink was a mess. Barbara’s tooth brush and the cup that went with it were lying in the wide bowl. There was water everywhere. The room smelled faintly of vomit. The cabinet below the sink was open. Cassandra couldn’t read the labels on the bottles, but she could tell which ones had been opened already. They were the ones not in their boxes.

She went back to Barbara’s room, fetched pen and paper, and did her best to copy the big, bold writing on the bottles. Every second increased her wish to flush the damn pills down the toilet. Words were hard enough. Why did these have to be so long?

By the time she returned to Barbara, Cassandra’s hands had started to cramp.

This time, it took two attempts to wake Barbara. Her eyes opened, barely. They were glassy and puffy and red. Her mouth moved much too slowly and she barely opened it, but Cassandra was pretty sure that Barbara mumbled her name. She did her gestures for “are you ok” again. This time, Barbara winced when she tried to answer.

It was like her arms were suddenly made of lead. Cassandra lifted one of them carefully and Barbara’s mouth wrinkled into a tight line. Pain. Cassandra nodded and started going down the list, pointing at different parts of Barbara’s body and waiting for the grimace of pain.

Yes to the belly. Yes to the chest. Yes to the arms. Yes to the throat. Yes to the mouth. No to the nose. Yes to the head. A very, very clear yes to the ears.

Cassandra was surprised there had been a no in there at all. She was no doctor, but Barbara was very certainly very sick. She held up her hand to tell her to wait.

First, Cassandra went to fetch a glass of water and some bread from the kitchen. Cassandra had not gotten sick very often, but every time it had happened, her father had insisted that she still drink and eat something. Barbara frowned at the sight of the glass and plate, but didn’t protest as Cassandra lifted her head carefully and put the glass to her lips. She wasn’t sure Barbara could have protested, even if she had wanted to.

It took much longer than Cassandra had wanted. Barbara took tiny sips and even that seemed to hurt her. She managed half a glass before she started coughing and sputtering. When Cassandra held out the bread to her, Barbara winced. More importantly, she refused to eat. She moved her jaw just a little, wincing every second.

Cassandra huffed in frustration and headed back to the kitchen. She would have to grind the bread into meal then, mix it with some water and spoon-feed it to Barbara. She needed to eat something, no matter how painful it was.

When she was finally done and came back to be bedroom, Barbara was already asleep again. Cassandra sighed, set down the plate next to the bed and went to take a hot shower. She would be of no use to Barbara if she got sick too.

***

Barbara did not get better. Cassandra watched on in concern as she woke from her uneven sleep every few minutes to cough and make a sound that was somewhere between a curse and a whine. Two hours in, Cassandra went to the bathroom and brought the medicine bottles to Barbara’s bed, holding them up one by one. She made Barbara swallow a pill from the one she nodded at.

It didn’t work.

Barbara continued to cough and whimper. Her forehead kept getting hotter. She ate two spoons of the bread paste and threw up the third. As the sun started to set, Cassandra finally gave up.

This was not working. Barbara was not getting better. She needed more help than Cassandra could give and there was only one person Cassandra was sure would be able and willing to help.

She raided the kitchen first, searching until she found one of the little bundles of food Barbara often prepared for her messengers, as a reward for work well done. Barbara’s stocks were not going to last forever, but she still shared. In No Man’s Land, food was a valuable currency. More so than money, actually.

Barbara’s clothes were too big for her, but Cassandra still borrowed one of the jackets and a pair of dry socks from her closet. She checked on Barbara one last time—still half-asleep, still moaning in misery—picked up the paper with the bottle writing, and slipped into her boots and out of the Clocktower.

***

The road to Leslie’s clinic in the north of Gotham was not nearly as dangerous as the path through gang land that she had walked in the morning, but it was much, much longer. She took she shortest path through the territory of the Penguin and Ivy—at least that’s what Oracle called them—and up through the part of town where ‘Batgirl’ patrolled. Even so, the moon was high in the sky by the time she reached the clinic. The roads had been cracked and half-buried in snow. The wind had been brutal.

Cassandra felt her bones shiver as she finally walked into the hospital.

Everyone was busy, as always. Gotham never slept, but this place was even busier. It reminded Cassandra of an ant hill.

A very small ant hill, with way too few workers. Cassandra was not surprised when no-one noticed her at first. She was not bleeding. She was not wailing in pain. She might have been invisible, for all anyone cared.

Leslie was at the heart of the camp, as any queen would be. She was looking over a bunch of files, frowning, shaking her head, and speaking in strained words. Her fingers tensed around the paper. The woman next to her wore the same white coat and the same frustrated look. Things were not going well. Cassandra felt a pang of guilt in her gut. Leslie had so much to do already... she was helping so many people... she looked so tired and sad... Did Cassandra really have any right to ask even more of her?

“Ah! My little ninja friend!” Despite her fatigue, Leslie’s lips curved into a smile. It spoke of warmth and genuine joy and Cassandra blushed. People were not often truly happy to see her. “Welcome back.”

The doctor did the warrior’s bow. It was clumsy and her left hand was not exactly straight enough, but Cassandra banished the thought from her head as soon as it came. She was not Cain and Leslie was not Cass. This was not training. This was just a greeting. Just a hello. Cassandra smiled back and repeated the gesture.

“Are you alright, my dear?” One of Leslie’s hands reached for her wrist, feeling her pulse, the other patted her cheek, no doubt checking for fever. “Are you hurt?”

Cassandra shook her head. She walked over to Leslie’s desk slowly and pointed at one of the pens. Leslie nodded.

She drew the symbol on the back of the crumpled piece of paper from her pocket. It was not perfect. Cass was not exactly a great artist. Leslie seemed to understand nonetheless.

“Oracle?”

Cassandra nodded quickly. Then she went through the motions again. Stomach. Arms. Throat. Head. Ears. She pointed to each part on her own body and winced as if she was really in pain. Then, she mimicked throwing up. She folded her hands together and rested her head against them, as if she was sleeping, and shook her head. Last but not least, she showed Leslie the stupid long bottle words and pointed at the garbage can.

She hoped Leslie would understand. She was Cassandra’s last hope.

“So, Oracle is sick,” Leslie murmured as she pretended to keel over in pain, “and the medication isn’t working?” She pointed at the paper and shook her head. Cassandra nodded.

Maybe not all hope was lost.

Leslie walked over to her desk, opened the top drawer, and retrieved some crackers and a bottle of water. She mimicked eating and Cass shook her head.

It was a subtle shift in Leslie’s body language, just a little tightening of her mouth and tensing of her shoulders, but Cass felt the hairs on her arm stand up. Leslie was worried. That meant it was serious. She reached for the doctor’s hand and pointed in the direction of the tower.

Leslie shook her head. “No, my dear. I’m sorry.” There was sadness, regret, and uncompromising, unflinching determination in the simple gesture. Leslie pointed up at the sky, then at herself and mimicked sleep. “It is in the middle of the night and I am too tired to travel.” Then, Leslie took the pen from Cass and drew a rising sun next to Oracle’s mask. “We’ll go there at sunrise, ok?”

Cassandra swallowed hard. Oracle had looked so... miserable and helpless... she didn’t like the thought of leaving her alone like that for hours...

But then again, Leslie looked absolutely exhausted. Her skin was almost as pale as her hair. Her eyelids twitched. Her shoulders were slumped. And Leslie was neither a skilled fighter nor as young as Cassandra. Making her travel like this, at night, through gangland, was NOT a good idea.

Cassandra nodded slowly.

“I promise we’ll go first thing tomorrow morning,” Leslie said as she squeezed her shoulder gently. Cassandra didn’t understand the words, but she knew the meaning behind the gesture. Comfort. Support.

She didn’t protest as Leslie led her to one of the few spare cods in the clinic. She didn’t sleep either.

***

Sunrise eventually came, after what had seemed like an eternity, through a wall of heavy, off-white fog. The damp cold crept into her bones despite the jacket and made her shiver, but Cass bit back the chattering of her teeth. She needed to be strong. For Oracle. A little cold was nothing.

Breakfast with Leslie consisted of a slice of bread with butter and a tea so thin, Cass could see the hair-thin cracks at the bottom of the cup through the water. Still, it was hot and it was water. Cassandra did not argue.

The other nurses did. It started when Leslie packed a bag full of syringes and weird bottles and instruments that Cass didn’t really know about. One of the other workers approached and raised her voice. Leslie never did, but she remained firm and unmovable and Cassandra was once again struck with awe at how fierce Leslie could be, when she had so little fire to begin with. She was not exactly sure how someone like Leslie could even exist. All she knew was that she was glad she did.

The scornful looks continued as they left the camp. Some came from the other staff. Some from the patients. Leslie ignored them all and so did Cass.

Fifteen steps into the mist, it no longer mattered. The clinic had been swallowed up behind them.

The going was slow. The roads were in bad shape and Leslie could not move as fast as Cassandra. The fog was like a thick, white cloud of cotton, and Cassandra cursed it silently as she double-checked after every step to make sure that Leslie, and ONLY Leslie, was still there. She didn’t like travelling like this. She would not be able to see or even hear danger until it was very close and it was almost impossible to tell how much time had passed.

Thankfully, Leslie was silent along the way. Fewer distractions were a good thing.

The first thing to interrupt the quiet was a squirrel that scuttled away before Cass had the good sense to catch it for dinner. The second was ‘Batgirl’.

Leslie did the talking and Cassandra was happy about that. This ‘Batgirl’ was dangerous, according to Oracle, and Cassandra was not very good at talking to people. She could read them like Oracle read books, but too often they took her silence for stupidity or her gestures for aggression. It never ended well.

‘Batgirl’ was not happy. She liked Oracle as little as Oracle liked her, apparently. Cassandra kept one eye on her, the other on Leslie, as they made their way to the south, past the harbor with its screaming sea gulls—whom Cassandra only ever tolerated because they made for good dinner—and to the broken ruins of the skyscrapers that marked the beginning of Penguin’s territory. To her right, the southeastern corner of the park stood out in vivid green despite the season. Ivy’s doing.

“This is where I leave you.” ‘Batgirl’ gave a quick nod and took a step back. “Be careful out there. Both of you.”

She was gone before Leslie had any chance to reply. Cassandra could hear the swish of her grappling hook and cape for a few more moments after she had left. Then, there was silence. Cassandra took Leslie’s hand and led her to the green.

There was no fog inside the park and Cassandra was grateful for that. However, there were no roads either. Roots and vines covered their way and they changed every day. Cassandra had given up on trying to map out the park long ago. All she could really do was hope that Ivy would not pick a fight.

By the time they reached the other side, Leslie sighed in frustration. Cassandra stopped, turned around and pointed at the nearest piece of rubble in seating height, but Leslie shook her head.

Onwards it was then.

They were almost at the tower when three of Penguin’s men ambushed them.

Cassandra could not understand what they were saying, but she did understand the meaning behind a raised gun. She understood growling. She understood circling. She understood Leslie clutching her bag of medical supplies just a little tighter.

She also understood that they did not have time for this. Barbara did not have time for this.

She took out the man with the gun first. As always, men with guns did not expect girls thin as sticks to rush at them. Cassandra had been using that to her advantage for years. She pushed the gun upwards in one swift motion and let the rest of her body follow the flow. Her knee ended up in the man’s groin and he dropped the gun instantly. Cassandra caught it as it fell and delivered a swift jab to the nerve cluster in his neck. One of the remaining two tried to go for Leslie. Cassandra jumped him, foot first, and planted the sole of her boot hard in his chest. He went down groaning, curling up on himself to stem the pain in the center of his chest. Cassandra knew he would be fine. She never used lethal techniques anymore. The third man charged at her blind with rage. She stepped aside casually and delivered another nerve jab.

For a few moments, all was quiet again. Leslie raised an eyebrow at her, but her lip quirked upwards in amusement. For Cassandra, that was good enough. She turned around and continued to lead the way.

The last hurdle on their way were the steps up the tower. The elevators were no longer working. Cassandra walked slowly, stopping every five landings to let Leslie catch her breath. Once they finally reached the top, Cassandra winced at the view through the windows.

It had taken them more than half a day to get here, judging from where the sun seemed to be, behind all those clouds. But at least they were here.

Barbara was exactly where Cassandra had left her, lying coughing in her bed. She smiled at Leslie, but winced in pain even as she did so. Cass watched from a nearby chair as Leslie went to work calmly, but efficiently, drawing blood, listening to Barbara’s heartbeat and breathing with that weird looking thing that doctors wore around their necks, and systematically applying pressure to various points of Barbara’s throat and jaw. She also checked Barbara’s ears and grimaced at the results, yet she kept on murmuring in a calm and steady tone. Cassandra did not understand those words either, but she knew the sound. It was what mothers did to comfort their children.

In the end, Leslie took the blood sample to one of the machines in Oracle’s lab. She pointed at one of the screens and then back at a nearby stack of paper and Cassandra nodded. She would report the results when they were there. She would do her best to make sure her drawings were as accurate as possible.

Last but not least, Leslie left Barbara with two new bottles of medicine. She picked up the one with the pills inside, mimicked pain and made drew a little sketch on Oracle’s notepad on the bedside table: sunrise, noon, and sunset. She put a symbol of one pill next to each and Cassandra nodded. Three pills a day. That was doable.

The second bottle contained a liquid. Cassandra waited patiently as Leslie drew three drops next to each pill and turned Oracle’s head gently. She raised her finger, as if in warning. Be careful. Do not mess this up. Then, she put three drops of the liquid into Barbara’s ear, just behind the little bud on the front of her ear. She waited for a few minutes, then turned Barbara’s head and repeated the gesture. Cassandra nodded. Three drops per ear. Three times a day. She could do that, too.

Leslie started packing again. Cassandra slipped from the room, quiet as a shadow, and searched the kitchen for a proper meal. She found... something in the fridge that looked like it only needed re-heating, but she was still happy when Leslie helped her by putting it into the microwave and setting the time. They waited and ate in comfortable silence and for the first time in three days, Cassandra had a feeling that things were going to be just fine.

***

Returning Leslie to her clinic had been easier than expected. Cassandra sighed as she shrugged out of her snow-covered boots. They had traded the fog for fresh snowfall, but apparently Leslie’s conversation with ‘Batgirl’ had also included an escort back to the clinic. Cassandra had been skeptical at first. She didn’t trust ‘Batgirl’, but she trusted Leslie. And she couldn’t leave Barbara alone again. Not like this.

The tower was quiet again. Cass flicked the light switch and sat down carefully in Barbara’s chair as the last slivers of sunlight disappeared from the world. To her right, Barbara stirred out of her sleep. She still looked exhausted and sick, but at least there was the tiniest hint of a smile on her face now.

“Cassie?”

Cassandra smiled, reached for Barbara’s shoulder, and squeezed gently. Support and comfort. Everything was going to be okay. She was going to make sure of it.

**Author's Note:**

> In case anybody wonders, poor Barb in this fic has a flu and an outer ear infection.


End file.
